On March 15, 1991, Lt. Laura Guth and crew flew an HH-3F 600 nautical miles across the Alaska peninsula and open water to rescue eight sailors from the ice-trapped Alaskan Monarch in the Bering Sea near St. Paul, Alaska. Before commercial helicopter emergency medical services were widespread, long-range HH-3Fs were called upon for MAST – Military Assistance to Safety and Traffic – missions, flying emergency cases with medical teams to hospitals. The HH-3F supported aids to navigation – carrying work crews and equipment to automated lighthouses, beacons, and buoys. The big helicopter occasionally hauled the 4,200-pound ADAPTS – the Air Deployable Antipollution Transfer System – to pump out tankers that had grounded.
Though the Coast Guard started deploying HH-52As on surface vessels in 1973 for drug interdiction, HH-3F structures were never stressed for shipboard operations. However, in the 1980s, the big HH-3F carried drug enforcement agents for OPBAT – Operations Bahamas Turks and Caicos. Coast Guard crews flying from forward operating locations also inserted, extracted, and supplied enforcement teams in Central America.
The HH-3F Pelican expanded the size, range, and lifting power of Coast Guard amphibious helicopters. It gave the Coast Guard capability for long-range rescues and counter-drug operations. More than 40 were operated between 1968 and 1994. Igor I. Sikorsky Historical Archives photo
The Coast Guard gave helicopter crews night vision goggles in the late 1980s and equipped some HH-3Fs with thermal imagers. The size of the HH-3F made it a preferred aircraft for drug interdiction teams, and AirSta Clearwater, Florida, close to the action, was the last air station to retire the helicopters in May 1994.
DOLPHINS AND JAYHAWKS
The Coast Guard began the search for a short-range recovery (SRR) helicopter to replace the HH-52A in 1974. Source selection authorities wanted a production twin-turbine helicopter with a 150-nautical-mile radius and able to carry three survivors and three crewmembers. The French Aerospatiale SA-365 Dauphin was adapted to Coast Guard requirements with U.S.-made Lycoming LTS101 engines and Rockwell Collins avionics, including a coupled autopilot that could bring the helicopter to a hands-off hover over a pre-set point. The Coast Guard accepted the first of 96 HH-65A (SA-366G) Dolphins on Nov. 14, 1984.
On the night of March 14, 1988, Lt. Cmdr. Gary Gamble took an HH-65A from AirSta Savannah, Georgia, in search of a fishing boat in danger of sinking 65 miles east of Georgetown, South Carolina. He arrived to find the vessel tossed in 40-knot winds and 15-foot seas. The helicopter crew lowered a trail line to the stern and first delivered two dewatering pumps. With the boat still sinking, Gamble quickly maneuvered his helicopter to hoist the crew of five aboard. One sailor missed the rescue basket, and the helicopter pilot took direction from the rescue crewman to scoop the sailor out of the water. With fuel low, the Dolphin quickly recovered the other four sailors and returned to land.
The Coast Guard SRR helicopter mission has broadened and the Dolphin has changed since American Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) delivered the HH-65A. The Elizabeth City Aircraft Repair and Supply Center (today’s Aviation Logistics Center or ALC) upgraded the HH-65A to HH-65B standards with new navigators and multifunction displays in 2001. Threats to homeland security gave the helicopter heavy guns and armor for Airborne Use of Force (AUF) missions. The HH-65C delivered in 2004 replaced twin Lycoming/Honeywell turboshafts with Turbomeca Arriel engines for 40 percent more power and upped maximum takeoff weight from 8,900 pounds to 9,480 pounds.
The first Coast Guard rescue after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005 was made by a Dolphin operating in 60-knot winds. The Coast Guard assumed the Washington, D.C., air defense mission in 2006 and ordered six new HH-65Cs to supplement Dolphin conversions.
A crewmember maintains tension on a tagline attached to a rescue basket during hoist training with an MH-65 Dolphin aircrew, Oct. 3, 2018. The Coast Guard’s short-range recovery helicopter since 1984 has been the H-65 Dolphin. Nearly 100 have been upgraded through several versions, with the latest upgrade underway to MH-65E standard.
The Coast Guard leased both the MD Helicopters MD900 and Agusta 109E (MH-90 Enforcer and MH-68 Stingray) for the counterdrug and counterterrorism Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) commissioned in 2000. HITRON ultimately received armed MH-65C Dolphins in 2008 and, today, has 10 MH-65Ds for ship- and shore-based missions. The Coast Guard now has 86 MH-65Ds in service, 10 more in programmed depot maintenance (PDM), and two upgraded to MH-65Es with the Common Avionics Architecture System in the MH-60T Jayhawk. Conversion of the entire fleet to MH-65E standards will begin in fiscal year 2020.